westwhere | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Hermione Granger & her magical pack of pixies (aka you)
WHEN: During Silent Night
WHERE: the Inn & surroundings
WHAT: can i interest you in some slice of life in these trying times? catch-all and open to all who want some cute form of interaction (warning: i may bite you in the feels) with Hermione before the new arc starts; bring on the magical weeds too
WARNINGS: will add if necessary

[ooc: please feel free to to either PM me or reach me on plurk/discord if you want a separate starter, or throw your own in here. get in losers, we're doing shenanigans.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah.

A sweet enough sentiment, but one Wrathion cannot entirely match. He does not want to remain here. Even if he would sorely miss Hermione, even there's the chance Anduin will forget everything between them -- well. He can only hope they might start anew. That his capacity to forgive would mean they had a second chance at it all.

But he does not want to remain here, if he can help it.

He tilts his head, pretending to assess her.

"It has been, of course, a privilege for you to know me."

Making jokes is an excellent way to get out of talking about things properly.

Boys. They never want to talk about their feelings, even when they're a dragon ten times her actual size.

"I'll splash you with hot water, don't think I wouldn't," she says, dryly. "You're almost as infuriating as you are handsome."

"You are aware the hot water will do me no harm."

So, splash away. It won't bother him. Now, cold water would be a threat.

She raises one hand, and flicks water at him. "I'm aware," she says, continuing the tradition of dry tone.

She can't even whack his forehead with a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet, so this feels very unsatisfying.

But the reminder that heat matters little due to his draconic nature, she forgets all about that train of thought that she was going to pursue earlier of if you're already with someone, I can't like you like you, so that's why it's a problem you're naked.

Instead, she thinks about that time he was a dragon. Let ger ride on his back and all.

"Does this mean you're immune to heat? Fire magic, volcanoes, so on?"

"My ancestral home is inside a volcano."

Blackwing descent has lava pouring down inside of it. The heat does not bother black dragons, or else it would be a very poor choice indeed to set up a base there.

Not that they're known for exclusively making good choices, but still.

"That's..." Terrifying? Overwhelming hot? Literally overwhelmingly hot? "Neat."

She stares at the water for a moment, wondering what's wrong with her.

"So does this just feel tepid to you?"

"Hotter would be pleasant, but this visage is human."

Thus, the skin is more delicate than scales. It can be damaged, and it can probably burn. He's not really tested scalding water, as he's had no reason to, but given he knows the skin is more sensitive in general it stands to reason it would react poorly to direct contact with extreme heat.

She pulls a face. "Ew, yes, let's not experiment with boiling your skin off."

On a brighter note, she's no longer stressed out about his nipples being right there.

"I'd rather it stay on," he agrees.

Wrathion shifts a moment, then turns -- one arm resting along the side of the hot springs as he faces her better.

"You prefer it here?"

She implied she was in no hurry to leave, to forget people here. Does home not appeal? Is her situation here somehow better?

She lets out a choked little laugh there. "No, it's objectively quite terrible," she admits. She knows how she sounds, honestly. Being sad about the idea of leaving, while staying is not painting a better picture. Staying has come with endless challenges, but throughout the time spent here she would be lying if she said she hasn't gotten better at magic, and other skills.

(Probably still can't poker face to save her life.)

"But..." she starts, then pauses. Lets out a sigh, shifting in her seat to turn and somewhat face him too, because - oh, being uppity about people making proper use of a hot spring is just too much, and she's broken so many rules and laws here at this point that she could stand to chill out! - it's also nicer to manage to talk about this with someone. "The idea of forgetting bothers me, I guess. Of all I've done and learned here being not only forgotten but becoming insignificant when I go back... It will be as if this Hermione has never existed - and I...quite like how resilient this Hermione is, so." A shrug here. "It'll be a shame."

And after a beat, she manages a wry smile. "Obviously it will have been an honour for me to have met you."

He considers that a long moment, flicking a faint smile in response to hers.

Forgetting is, of course, bothersome. It is, in a way, rendering things insignificant -- they will no longer be significant to them if they cannot remember, although in his heart the events have value regardless. They simply wouldn't impact his future decisions, unless in some fashion the memories did return later.

Still, one thing here is important:

"If you are resilient now," he says, "it is because you are capable of resilience, you always were and you will be capable again."

That isn't some quality unique to their location, it is a quality in Hermione herself.

She presses her lips together for a moment, swallowing back a remark in the light of I wasn't looking for validation for once, because it would probably be - at its root - a lie.

"I know that," she does say, with a brief wave of dismissal. "Anyway, the point is - I feel conflicted because this can't exactly be called temporary. We've been travelling together for ages now, long enough for me to learn details about people, about their worlds, long enough to know I'd miss them.

"So I can't throw myself at an open beacon without any hesitation, is that I am saying. I would hesitate, as much as I want to return home and resume my life there too."

He lets out a low hum of thought, eyes skimming away out over the water.

"I suspect you and Anduin have that in common."

Anduin would hesitate too, he knows, to leave this place. To leave the escape it offers him. A funny thing, to feel you are escaping the grand comforts of a castle, but Anduin of course has pressures too. Expectations. As easy as it may be to envy his strong group of followers, his throngs of staff and the prestige of his role the crown is not always a comfortable thing to wear.

She lets out a soft laugh at that. "I suspect we have a lot more in common than just that."

It's one way to change the subject, away from the discomfort of their eventual separation. No matter how many friends she makes here, no matter even if she grows more than fond of someone, at the end of it all - if she survives it all - she will return to her life, in Hogwarts after the final battle against Voldemort, and carry on without knowledge of any of this.

It's depressing. Better to distract from it.

So here she adds, "Except for the part where he's royalty and I'm the daughter of dentists." She voices one thought that has been with her since Serthica, a little out of the blue: "You know they would've really applauded your dental hygiene. Especially in your dragon form - sharp white teeth. Impressive."

... A curious compliment. He doesn't think anyone has ever complimented his teeth before? Still, Wrathion glances around warily to make sure nobody has appeared to overhear this -- either the part about Anduin being royalty or the part about his dragon form.

"... Thank you," he manages, faintly bewildered. Is this a common compliment? Do people compliment teeth regularly? "You have excellent hygiene yourself."

Is that a good return compliment? It somehow doesn't feel like one.

"Something we have in common, along with a strong will and a fondness for research."

Stubbornness and obsessiveness.

She lets out a laugh at that unexpected compliment from him, and he doesn't have to blink-and-miss it, she's preening a little. Of course she does, her teeth are excellent now. She hasn't flossed in a year but they're doing great still.

"I take it you have no idea what a dentist is?"

Could this be something new for Wrathion to learn? Isn't that one of the favourite things of people like them, with a fondness for research?

"We have dentists in azeroth," he assures her. "Although I must confess, I have never attended one."

He simply does not have a dental plan, and he isn't particular sure how you go about finding one who is trained in dragon teeth. Presumably he'd have to attend in his visage, if he did. Is that even worthwhile? He's not really sure. He's never had a tooth-based-affliction before.

She gasps at that. "You do?!" Nevermind that he's never been to one, those teeth must be magical, moving on, she's stunned. "You know, when I said this at school the more traditional wizards and witches looked at me as if I'd grown a second head! So Azeroth clearly wins points."

They don't... have dentists? Isn't it a common sort of thing?

"What a peculiar school," he offers. "They dealt with their ailments some other way?"

Magic, perhaps, since they were all mages by the sound of it? Wrathion may not be exposed to all the fine details of the world at large, but it sounds like he has reached the low bar of 'better than the people at Hermione's school'. He'll take that victory.

She rolls her eyes at this. "There's a potion and a spell for everything," she says dryly, with the hypocresy of someone who did shorten her front teeth via magic in her fourth year. She can still remember her mother's unconvinced Hermione... when she'd seen the result in the summer.

"A lot of the more...base needs of being alive and human are glossed over there. There are no dentists in the magic school, and they rarely give us tea for breakfast, instead flooding us with neverending pumpkin juice." At the memory, a shudder.

Little bit of a jump between 'basic needs', 'no dentists' and 'only pumpkin juice'. It makes Wrathion wonder what else counts as a basic need that is overlooked and solved with only potions and spells.

"I see," he murmurs, frowning in thought. "If they do not learn these things, do they not... find themselves at a disadvantage?"

Or is it something they simply... never have a requirement for?

"I don't know," she mutters, equally confused by how the wizarding world works sometimes. "By all means they should be, but sometimes it feels like they just decided to not get cavities and their teeth...obeyed?"

She pulls a face. "The wizarding world is strange, Wrathion."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only